From Hawaii to Maine, Legislators Take Action on Cell Phones and Children

From Hawaii to Maine, Legislators Take Action on Cell Phones and Children

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) - Apr. 30, 2013 - SAN FRANCISCO -- CALIFORNIA BRAIN TUMOR ASSOCIATION

While Obama Appoints Ex CEO of Telecom Industry to Head the FCC, Cell Phone Concerns Addressed Across the Nation:

From Hawaii to Maine Legislators take Action on Cell Phone Use and the Effect on Children’s Brains

San Francisco – April 30, 2013 

On February 7, 2013 in Pennsylvania, Rep. Vanessa Lowery Brown announced she is re-introducing former House Bill 1408 which would require the placement of warning labels upon cellular telephones. This legislation proposed to create the Children’s Wireless Protection Act.  Specifically, this act would prohibit the sale of cellular telephones unless both the product and its packaging display a non-removable warning label outlining the dangerous effects of cellular telephone usage.

On February 8, 2013, Senator Joshua Green of Hawaii introduced a measure requiring warning labels for cell phone radiation in the Health Committee of the Hawaii State Senate.

On May 2, 2013, in the face of mounting evidence of increased risk for malignant brain tumors with cell phone use, including a recent Italian Supreme Court ruling that cell phone use does cause brain tumors and the banning of sales and advertising of cell phones to children in several nations, Rep. Andrea Boland  of Maine, re-introduces The Children’s Wireless Protection Act, a legislative bill to inform Maine consumers of the possible health risks associated with cell phone use.

The overall impetus behind this legislation is to create widespread awareness among the citizens regarding the possible health risks, particularly as they relate to pregnant women and children, of direct exposure to electromagnetic radiation, which is emitted through the usage of cellular telephones.

Ironically on May 7 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will vote  whether or not to  kill San Francisco’s pioneering ordinance  (Cell Phone Right to Know ) requiring cell phone retailers to provide information about how customers may reduce their exposure to the radiofrequency radiation (RF) emitted by cell phones. They may cave to the CTIA- wireless association’s lawsuit against San Francisco although District Court Judge Alsup is prepared to re-hear the case.  Seems the Supervisors’are being trumped by the wishes of their Mayor to keep peace with telecom.

The Supervisors’ vote comes just as the FCC has formally opened an assessment of their 1996 RF exposure safety standards and testing procedures in the face of the unprecedented use of wireless devices by children. Also, last week the International Agency for Research on Cancer published their Monograph stating there is evidence linking gliomas and acoustic neuromas to cell phone use. In 2011, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified the radiation of cell phones as a possible human carcinogen based upon an increased risk of brain cancer associated with cell phone use.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, in a July 2012 letter to the FCC, declares “children….are disproportionately impacted by all environmental exposures, including cell phone radiation. In fact, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, when used by children, the average RF energy deposition is two times higher in the brain and 10 times higher in the bone marrow of the skull, compared with mobile phone use by adults.”

.A new study, “Incidence Trends in the Anatomic Location of Primary Malignant Brain Tumors in the United States: 1992–2006” (Zada et al, 2012) references 3 U.S. cancer registries (including cancer rates from the National Cancer Institute) that reveal an increase in brain tumor rates in the State of California in those areas of the brain closest to where cell phones are held.

“San Francisco’s law is exactly what is needed and it will be a tremendous blow to public health across America if they stand with industry rather than the rights of their constituents to informed consent of a device even children use daily,’” said Ellen Marks of the California Brain Tumor Association (CABTA), a non-profit she and her son Zachary founded in 2009 after her husband developed a brain tumor on the same side of the head to which he held his cell phone for many years.

“The hypothetical legal costs to the city of defending their unanimously voted upon law are a drop in the bucket compared to the probable public health care costs in failing to inform consumers of simple ways to reduce their exposures to cell phone radiation,” Marks pointed out.  In 2010, Stanford University reported the average cost of initial treatment of a brain cancer is approximately $600,000.

Today’s announcement that President Obama has appointed CTIA- wireless industry ex CEO to chair the FCC, the non-scientific agency regulating cell phone safety is  a disappointment to many advocacy groups and Senators.

Contact:  (925) 285-5437  cabtasf@hotmail.com  or  (360) 201-3959

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